loving living

Never imagined we’d ever be so happy to see pee

Little boy had his first major bout of illness at the start of this week — Fever. Urgh, it’s worse than having a cold and cough combined. He’s all limp, look so weak and tired, kept resting his head on our shoulders, he had no appetite, and no matter how we tried to amuse him, we could elicit no smiles. He didn’t even tried to crawl, which was something he does everyday😦 Very heart-pained to see him so sad-looking.

We kept monitoring his temperature, fearing it would rise too high and fry his brain…. 37.2… 36.8… 37.5… 37.3… 38.1… 38.5!! That was 7pm already, but we decided it was time to bring him to the doctor. Called Vista, their pediatric department closed at 5pm, but nurse said they have on-call duty doctors they could call back in an hour, so we waited for their confirmation call. Guess what the nurse said when she called back? “Sorry, but I can’t manage to reach the 2 doctors. One refuse to pick up his phone, the other one, maybe the signal is bad. They could be in a meeting or in the train. You should try another clinic if it’s an emergency.” I have no issues with the nurse, but Er, I thought the doctors are “on-call”??

Went to BJU emergency in the end. No major Q in this not-so-cheap expatriate hospital, but even so we had to wait before the doctor materialised in front of our eyes (Hey, isn’t this the emergency department?). The consultation was quick but as our little boy hadn’t taken his last pneumococal jab, we were adviced to do a blood and urine test to be sure that Jingheng’s fever wasn’t a major problem.

Drawing blood was easy (painful, but the blood is there for you to take it anytime), but not the pee. How do you tell a baby pee immediately? Doc’s parting words, “it could be anything from 10minutes to 4 hours. What do you think it will be?” ARGH. Jingheng had to wear a pee bag to catch the pee. This pee bag, it’s a transparent plastic bag with an adhesive side that you tape around the penis, so you can imagine how uncomfortable it is for a baby. The pee bag was the last straw for him coz by then he had been touched, prodded and pinned down by the many nurses/ doc who are all strangers for the standard checks and blood test. He got scared and hollered each time the nurse laid him down to attach the bag.

And he absolutely hate the pee bag. The first one, he tore it away with his hands after a while. The second bag, he kept tearing at it while we/ nurses checked it there was pee, so the bag got sort of detached and had to be changed. The third one, he got tired of pulling at it.

Pee yet? Checking. No.

Pee yet? No. Let’s go watch world cup.

Pee yet? Nope. “You should feed him more water.” Rubbish, obviously we’re already doing that but he’s just not peeing.

Pee yet? Oooh, he straightened his legs, looks like he’s making some efforts down there, probably peed?! Checking. Still no.

Pee yet? No. Should daddy order Mac, he hadn’t had dinner😦

Pee yet? No. Let’s go see if France has scored against South Africa’s two goals.

Pee yet? No… South Africa won… Which team should we bet on later?

Pee yet? No….. all.. three… of…. us…. dozed…….. off……….. zzzzzzzzzzz

Pee yet? It’s 11.20pm. Ok, we check at 11.30pm, if nothing we go home and forget about the test. Crap, let’s just check now. Hey… looks yellow… OH HE PEED!!! NURSE QUICK COME!! WE ARE READY TO GO!!